MIT’s Smart Robo-picker for Warehouse Automation

Here is a robotic system that can help with warehouse sorting, picking, and clearing tasks. MIT and Princeton University engineers have developed this pick & place system with a robotic arm, custom gripper and suction cup. The object-agnostic grasping algorithm allows the robot to assess random objects and determine the best way to handle them.

Once it has successfully grasped an item, the robot lifts it out from the bin. A set of cameras then takes images of the object from various angles, and with the help of a new image-matching algorithm the robot can compare the images of the picked object with a library of other images to find the closest match. In this way, the robot identifies the object, then stows it away in a separate bin.

The researchers are planning to use tactile sensors and other tech to improve the robot’s speed and reactivity.